Volver, Volver. A Reflection for Día de Muertos

I grew up hearing the song that began today’s service. Volver, Volver means Come Back, Come Back. This cry for a lost loved one to return has graced many a Mexican and Tex-Mex funeral, and in my experience it’s usually at that point in the service when even my stoic aunts begin to weep.

Volver, Volver. Come back, Come back. Today, I am mindful of the fact that with nearly 5 million deaths worldwide from Covid-19, seven hundred thousand of which have been in the United States, many of us in this room bring fresh and incomprehensible losses. I hope you will find a moment over the next few days to light a candle, write their name, and place bright marigolds around their memories. Today I am especially remembering my grandparents who died when I was a teenager, as well as two cousins who died in 2020, the latter of Covid-19.

Día de Muertos is a day for visiting graves, for building an ofrenda, and for remembering those who have passed to the other side. Everyone knows this – in no small part thanks to the Disney film Coco. Less well known is the fact that it is also a day for bearing witness to inequality in both life and death. And so before we build our ofrenda, I want to spend a brief moment talking about that aspect of this celebration.

Much like any ancient scripture or tradition, Dia de muertos is the result of centuries - perhaps even millennia - of interpretation and reinterpretation. Roman Catholic missionaries in Mexico noticed how similar this indigenous celebration was to the annual feast day of All Saints, and so they moved this celebration from what was likely a summer celebration closer to All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints. That’s why this day is typically celebrated November 2nd. This both profoundly changed and preserved the tradition at the same time.

This new Día de Muertos celebration was then reimagined again in the early 20th century during a time of mass death and devastation in Mexico. Approximately 1.5 million people died in the Mexican Civil War which lasted from 1910 to 1920. These deaths occurred mostly among the rural poor. That’s when Dia de muertos became a kind of commentary on the vast inequalities in Mexican society, for even as so many died, the wealthy remained oblivious and were focused on all things French. On your chair, I’ve placed some of the prints produced by the brilliant artist Jose Guadalupe Posada during this period.

Look closely. These images are not just charming caricatures. Notice the clothes. These are reminders to the wealthy that they are little more than dressed-up death.

This aspect of Dia de muertos – this commentary on inequality - feels painfully relevant in light of what we have seen over the past year and a half. In New York, we saw the wealthiest zip codes - including this one - empty out as 420,000 of the richest New Yorkers fled to second and/or newly-purchased homes. The resulting inequities are now clear:

• As of July 2021, while national life expectancy had dropped by a full year, “Hispanic people experienced the greatest drop in life expectancy — three years — and Black Americans saw a decrease of 2.9 years.” This is because, and I quote from the New York Times, “Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely to be employed in risky, public-facing jobs during the pandemic — bus drivers, restaurant cooks, sanitation workers — rather than working on laptops from the relative safety of their homes”, with far more Black and Hispanic Americans relying on public transportation and living in intergenerational homes.[1]
• We also know that the pandemic was especially deadly for those with no place to lay their head. Between May and August 2020, the mortality rate from Covid-19 for homeless New Yorkers was 78% higher than for the average New Yorker, and this is largely because the homeless could not self-isolate in New York’s crowded shelter system.[2] The lack of affordable housing is and has been deadly.
• Then there’s so much that we do not know. New Yorkers are beginning to understand what happened in nursing homes, but there’s very little information about those for whom a prison sentence became a death sentence during Covid-19. A member of my parish died this way.[3] It’s still unclear how.
• Finally, on a global level, even as I prepare my family to get their booster shots, I bear in mind that the fact that many of our global partners are furious – and yes, I mean furious – at the United States for having so much and sharing so little. A leader at the World Health Organization compared the approval of booster shots to replacing a life jacket because the edges are a little frayed even as people around the world are drowning for lack of any life jacket at all.[4] As of today, October 28th, only 8.3% of people on the African continent have received a single dose.[5]

This is also to say nothing about the other pandemics we saw in 2020 – the murderous police, the racist attacks – all of which are disproportionately reflected in the lives and deaths of people of color.

So much death. So much inequality. Words fail. And so, we gather to name these inequalities and build an altar of remembrance.

Let us pray: Loving God, we pray for a more just future, we hope for a more just world. May faith leaders around the globe work to build a world that reflects God’s love made public, a world of justice and equity. Stay close as we grieve the loss of our loved ones over the next few days, and may their memory always be a blessing in our lives. Amen.

And now, as the mariachis begin a second song, I invite all who wish and are able to come up to this ofrenda and offer a prayer, write a name, light a candle, bring food if you have it, as an act of remembrance and witness.

---

[1] Julie Bosman, Sophie Kasakove and Daniel Victor “U.S. Life Expectancy Plunged in 2020, Especially for Black and Hispanic Americans” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/us/american-life-expectancy-report.html

[2] Jones, Zoe Christian. “COVID-19 is driving New York City's record homelessness figures, advocates say” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-homelessness-new-york-city/?mc_cid=89014d2be9&mc_eid=61fea61b64 / Accessed 12.15.20

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/opinion/covid-new-york-state-prisons.html

[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-promotes-booster-shots-against-covid-moral-questions-arise-n1277092

[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html